Cameron was born in London and brought up in Peasemore, Berkshire.[8] Cameron has a brother, Alexander Allan(born 1963, a barrister and QC)[9] and two sisters, Tania Rachel (born 1965) and Clare Louise (born 1971).[10][6] His father, Ian, was born at Blairmore House, a country house near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and died near Toulon, in France, on 8 September 2010;[11] Ian was born with both legs deformed and underwent repeated operations to correct them. Blairmore was built by Cameron's great-great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes,[12] who had made a fortune in the graintrade in Chicago and returned to Scotland in the 1880s.[13]

In the 1830s Cameron's first cousin six times removed was compensated with £4,101 for 202 slaves when they were liberated by Parliament.[16] Cameron's paternal forebears also have a long history in finance. His father Ian was senior partner of the stockbrokers Panmure Gordon, in which firm partnerships had long been held by Cameron's ancestors, including David's grandfather and great-grandfather,[10] and was a Director of estate agent John D. Wood. David Cameron's great-great-grandfather Emile Levita was a German Jewish financier and a direct descendant of Renaissance scholar Elia Levita, the author of Bovo-Bukh, the first secular work ever published in Yiddish. Emile Levita obtained British citizenship in 1871 and was the director of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.[15] Through Levita, Cameron is a descendent of the Levites, who themselves claim to be descended fromMoses.[15] His wife, Cameron's great-great-grandmother, was a descendant of the wealthy Danish Jewish Rée family on her father's side.[17][18]